


Shadows

by Fourier



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Light Angst, Other, Past Sexual Assault, Past Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-05
Updated: 2016-10-05
Packaged: 2018-08-19 15:46:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8215067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fourier/pseuds/Fourier
Summary: “What about you, Percival?” she asks. “First person you ever shagged?”
   For a split-second he can feel his mind reaching back, searching for the memory, and hitting a wall; and even though he knows what’s behind it, knows he could leave it closed, in that second he pushes it aside.--Something like a Percy character study/backstory headcanon.





	

**Author's Note:**

> There are no depictions of sexual assault beyond brief, nondescriptive flashbacks, but it is the focus of this fic, so please proceed at your own discretion.

It’s a late night in Scanlan’s mansion; a rare evening where they have a night to rest without fear of what’s coming in the morning. Scanlan and Grog are in the training pit, beating up each other or a cow or one of the servants. Percy’s at the kitchen table with a needle and thread between his teeth, stitching up a nasy tear in the bottom of his coat. 

And Keyleth and Pike and the twins are getting properly drunk off a few expensive-ass bottles of wine. 

(Maybe, looking back on it, that’s why it catches him by such surprise—he feels safe, for once. He lets his guard down just enough.)

He’s half-listening to their slurred conversations as they lay spread out on the living room floor a few feet away from him. Keyleth hasn’t stopped laughing for what sounds like minutes now—he cocks his head towards them as she hiccups for breath.

“A one-night stand,” she laughs, and he sees Pike flush a bright red. “ _Pike!_ ”

“We were docked at some port I never thought I’d be back to!” Pike protests. “He was handsome! And very charming!”

“That’s our girl,” Vax grins, giving her a shove as she buries her face in her hands.

“I did the same thing, darling,” Vex grins, watching as Vax scowls. Pike peeks her beet-red face out from behind her fingertips to glance at Vex as she speaks. “This adorable little barkeep in some town we passed through when we were, what, 19, brother? Illya?”

“I don’t need to know,” Vax snaps as Vex tips her head back in laughter. Keyleth has a hand pressed over her mouth in an attempt to stifle the giggles; Percy has utterly abandoned his sewing project. 

“He was so short,” Vex reminisces, a mischievous grin across her face. “And the cutest red hair!”

Vax takes a swig of his wine and stares his sister in the eye. “Would you like to know the first boy I fucked?”

“Gods, no,” she shrieks, pressing her hands to her ears as Vax carries on:

“One of Dad’s servants—”

“I’m not _listening!_ ”

“—in the kitchen storage, late one night just before we went home—”

“You’re _disgusting_.”

“—you thought he was cute too, if I recall, the tall high-Elven one with the dark hair.” 

Vex has decided to stare resolutely into the distance as if her brother isn’t speaking at all; he laughs so hard he clutches his stomach and Pike and Keyleth are leaning forward in fascination.

“What about a girl?” Keyleth asks, and begins stammering out an apology as soon as the words are past her lips.

“Kiki, hush,” Vax laughs, enough to get her to quiet down. “Just some pretty girl we went to school with.”

“Surprised you attended school enough to meet someone,” Percy chimes in on instinct, and a hushed _ohhh_ goes through everyone but Vax, who grins at him in praise of a joke well landed.

They’re all turned towards him now, though, and Vex tilts her head.

(He loads the chamber and Vex’ahlia fires.)

“What about you, Percival?” she asks. “First person you ever shagged?”

For a split-second he can feel his mind reaching back, searching for the memory, and hitting a wall; and even though he knows what’s behind it, knows he could leave it closed, in that second he pushes it aside.

He opens his mouth to answer and feels his throat close up and feels their eyes on him and feels _hands on his skin on his throat on his legs_ —

“Tough question, de Rolo?” Vax asks, from somewhere far away, and Percy vaguely registers that there’s concern behind the teasing, but he just shakes himself and glares too harshly.

“Percy’s a player,” Keyleth chimes in, still laughing, still too drunk to catch the sudden shift in the air. Pike lays a hand on her shoulder, but Keyleth just turns to her confused.

“Percy’s going to bed,” Percy says sharply, gathering his cloak in his hands. He clutches so tight he knows his knuckles must be white but he doesn’t let go; the pressure feels good in his hands, the cloth feels grounding, and his hands feel like they might shake apart if he doesn’t.

“Darling,” Vex calls as he walks away, but the words don’t feel like they lodge anywhere in his head. They slide off past him as he walks.

(Somewhere in the back of his mind a shadow flares.)

*****

Percy tries to go to bed.

He lies in bed and tosses and turns and shakes and when he thinks he is almost asleep he jolts out of it, stomach rolling, sweat beading on his forehead. Every time he closes his eyes he sees and feels and it does not let him sleep. 

He lays there for hours, getting lost deeper and deeper in his head until he thinks maybe he has fallen asleep—and instead finds himself outside Vex’s door, fist curled against the wood. 

Apparently he’d knocked. 

“Go away, brother, I’m sleeping,” she grumbles. 

_You can leave now,_ he tells himself. _She’s given you the excuse._

“Ah, it’s me,” he calls out, and Gods, his voice sounds shaky.

The door’s open a moment later. She stands there wrapped in a night gown, eyes wide with concern, mouth set in what almost looks like a frown. 

“Come in,” she says, beckoning him towards her. He hesitantly steps inside as she shuts the door behind her. “You haven’t slept, have you dear?”

She glances at his clothes and he follows her gaze—and, oh. He’s still in his day clothes.

“No,” he admits, and he feels his legs starting to give under him.

“Sit,” she says, a command. He nods as she guides him to the bed; as she sits beside him her hand brushes his and he flinches against his will. He refuses to look her in the eye to see her reaction to that.

She crosses her legs and waits as he fidgets with the buttons on his coat sleeves. 

(Bullet. Chamber. Loaded. Fire.)

“Anna Ripley,” he says, and it burns his tongue. “The first—the first person. It was Anna.”

He forces himself to look at Vex’s face—to prove something to himself, or to her, or just because not knowing would be worse. He watches it register on her face: the confusion, and then shock, and then something he doesn’t know how to categorize. It’s the look on her face when one of them is run through in battle.

“Oh, darling, she _didn’t_ ,” Vex whispers, and _that_ emotion he can very much categorize. He’s familiar with that one: raw, unfiltered rage.

“I’m afraid she rather did,” he says dryly, turning his attention back to the buttons on his sleeve. “She was… creative. In her torture. She knew there’s only so much that physical wounds can do to a person. So. She was rather more interested in… long term effects. I believe.”

He has processed this. Over and over and over, he has walked through this logic in his head, and he has filed it away as just another thing she used to hurt him, and he has locked it in a box and placed it neatly in the spaces in his mind meant for things he is not allowed to think about any longer. 

And then Vex’ahlia, and her smile, and who was the first person as if it were a privilege, a thing to be celebrated, and the black shame of what she had done to him had come roaring back. 

“Percival,” Vex whispers. “I’m so sorry, I—I had no idea—”

“No, you wouldn’t, of course not,” he says quickly. “It’s not something I choose to advertise. Not something relevant to bring up in conversation, really. ‘Oh, yes, that’s Dr. Ripley, the horrible woman who helped kill my family, and by the way, here’s another thing she’s done.’ I think you were all already sold on the matter.”

Vex laughs, more shock than amusement, and it sounds oddly soothing.

“Well,” she says, and settles back into an air of gravitas. “Thank you for trusting me with that, Percy. I’m—I’m sorry I brought it up.”

“Not your fault,” he says quickly.

She smiles softly. “Not yours either.”

“Oh, Gods, don’t.”

“I won’t, I won’t,” she assures him. “And I won’t tell the others, you know. Of course. ”

He nods. He’d like to say something else, but his throat feels full and his eyes feel heavy and staying upright is enough of a focus at the moment.

“They wouldn’t think less of you,” she continues. “I certainly don’t.”

“Vex,” he says quickly. “May I sleep?”

“Oh!” She nearly jumps, standing up quickly. “Oh, of course, darling. Do you want—would you like to stay here?”

He almost says no on instinct—and of a desire to stand up, to lift his head high and compose himself, to be someone other than the person in his head.

But he is tired. And Vex is here.

“I’d like that,” he says, so softly she may not hear so much as reads his lips.

“Lie down, then, darling,” she says, and he crawls onto the mattress, falling into the pillows with sleep already creeping into his mind. 

“Thank you,” he murmurs. 

“Of course,” he hears her say as she drapes a blanket over his shoulders, grabs her own and lies next to him. 

He opens an eye to look at her—mouth soft, face gentle, blankets pulled up to her shoulders, and feels something like warmth in his chest as he closes his eyes again.

“I’m right here, Percival,” she whispers, and he nods. “You’re safe.”

(For once, he feels it.)


End file.
